This document was not filed without many misgivings on the part of Major Majoribanks and of horrified protest from his wife. Ingleside was remote from modern progress and improvements, and such advantages as might accrue from successfully prosecuting a suit for divorce won but scant consideration there. The worthy couple were firm in their own conviction that marriage should not be considered a temporary connection. It was, to their minds, a lifelong and holy joining together, and should not be put asunder. Mrs. Majoribanks made some remarks so very old-fashioned as almost to excite Paula’s laughter, despite the seriousness of the subject. It was a wife’s duty to put up with her husband’s foibles, to overlook little unkindnesses; the two should learn to bear and forbear in their mutual imperfections. Had she ever remonstrated gently, with wifely lovingness, with Mr. Floyd-Rosney’s harshness? “I didn’t dare,” said Paula. And the mere phrase was an instance in point. A woman’s craft in reading hearts is a subtle endowment. Mrs. Majoribanks had not kept step with the onward march of the world, but she struck a note that vibrated more in accord with Paula’s temperament when she said: “It is often a hardship in point of worldly estimation to be a divorced woman.” She looked cautiously at Paula over her spectacles, for in the old days no one had been more a respecter of the opinions of smart people than her husband’s niece. “Oh, that isn’t the case any more,” said Paula lightly, with a little fleering laugh, “it is quite fashionable now to have a divorce decree.” “You may depend upon it,” Mrs. Majoribanks said in private to her husband, “Paula is reckoning on winning back Randal Ducie! And, to my mind, that is the worst feature of the whole horrible affair.”